12 October 2010

But how credible is the threat in Germany?According to German intelligence officials, who spoke to TIME anonymously so as to talk more freely about an ongoing investigation, the information about a suspected plot that led to the elevated terrorism alert likely came from Ahmad Siddiqui, a 36-year-old German of Afghan origin. Siddiqui was picked up by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in July and since then has been held at Bagram air base. According to the German officials, Siddiqui was part of an 11-member group of radical Islamic militants who left Hamburg in March 2009 and headed to the Waziristan region of Pakistan to attend terrorist-training camps. The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that Siddiqui told U.S. interrogators that in Waziristan he had met a high-level al-Qaeda operative, identified as Younis al-Mauretani, who revealed that Osama bin Laden was planning terrorism attacks in Europe.There is further worrying evidence surrounding Siddiqui. Hamburg intelligence officials say he is also a close friend of Mounir el-Motassadeq, who was convicted for his role in aiding the 9/11 attackers by a Hamburg court in 2006. The two men have known each other since 1997, they both visited the city's Taiba mosque - known as al-Quds until two years ago. (Mohammed Atta and his 9/11 co-conspirators met there in the late 1990s.) And Siddiqui often drove Motassadeq's father on visits to the jail where his son was being held.